So, I finally Made more Progress. The motor needed the leaks fixed, a new clutch and pretty much a massive service. So far its deffinetly got one and has been worthwhile
Some good mates of mine offered to do the job in their shed, and I assisted by cleaning the motor and passing tools :P

I got all the parts required for a cheap price through some friends, and we got started

The car went up on my friend's Hoist, right next to his awesomesauce drift car.

 
We started disconnecting everything and along the way found some very major issues, such as the accelerator cable which was ready to split.
We then raised it up once again and dumped all the fluids. Everything was going great until we got to the gearbox. We dumped the oil and there was less than half a litre in there! Honestly we were so lucky. Turns out the rear mains wasnt leaking but the gearbox.


 
Then the final removal of all wiring, etc began. Mr. ECU got disconnected and now sits happily on the boot floor.
 

 
The plan of attack was to drop the rear subframe with the wheels and suspension still attached (along with the motor and box obviously)
Blocks of wood made good supports ;)

 
 
With some gentle persuasion it eventually came free. It trapped my friend's hand in the process though, he was a lucky man that we were close by. No one likes engines on their hands (Nothing broken)

 
 
And then we began work. Along the way we found that the previous mechanic put the wrong spark plugs in, and that the timing belt had been done wrong.

 
We were deffinetly lucky today with all the issues that we found, and the hands that we saved haha :P

Tommorow we should finish the job and hopefully tuesday it will be back on the road ready for another 100,000km's
 

Wow! It's a good thing that you picked these things up now.
Also, well done for taking everything apart and doing it yourself, a lot of people (myself included) aren't that mechanically minded haha. Best of luck with the build. Keep us posted :)

^lol! yeh the amount of times my mechanic called my car a "nightmare"

Car is back home, parked safely in the garage. 

Need to sort out some issues though:

We put a new accelerator cable in and it feels a bit funny. there is about a cm or two of free play in the pedal before the cable tightens up and rips open the throttle body. How can I adjust this?
 
Car seems to be a bit iffy selecting 1st (I have a short shifter)

Just glad to have it back

Tree

With regards to the shifting difficulty maybe there's air in the clutch system so try bleeding it. Mine seems better after that. Otherwise next place to look is the clutch master cylinder. Whatever you do DON'T force it too hard into 1st otherwise the cable can snap then you're L4D (sort of, I did lol). I also found slightly tapping the accel while pushing into 1st helped give some slack

 
What i meant, was that when you push the shifter into first, it seems to go into third, even when it looks like it should be first 

Bit of an update

Car was working great until it started making a terrible whining noise, ended up being the timing belt rubbing (thanks to Falcon for coming and helping me find it)
Got a new steering wheel a while a go, genuine Nardi Padded Centre. These are pretty rare apparently

 
 
Also tried on some wheels while at my friend's shed. these are 17x9 +20 I think. Obviously wouldnt use them for the front but the rears fit pretty well. 
 

 
And last up, a group shot of the 'pop up headlight club'


 
It is such a great feeling to have a car that dosn't drip oil and is now reliable (hopefully)

Next up is brakes, followed by wheels and I will be happy. Coming along rather nicely 

Tidied up my engine bay recently, used crinkle black on most things and gloss on the heat sheilds. My old toyota twincam badge was far from salvagable so i stickerbombed it, clearcoated it 10 times then reapplied it to the intake manifold. It adds a bit of vibrace to a very dull area I think. not pictured is my turbo factory strut brace that I bought off ddubtoille for extra rigidity :P



I want to do the throttle body a different colour but i have heard if you remove the TPS its a pain to get it back in working so im leaving that for now 

The other thing I did was stickerbomb my boot.... not really a fan of external stickerbombing but this is a inconspicuous place compared to a quarter panel, plus everyone goes "wow" when you open the boot up



last but not least is my other project car I have been working on, my 1990 mitsubishi triton drift ute. took it to skidpan recently for a bit of a shakedown. goes alright


 

Thats all the updates for now, not sure what will be done next but we shall soon see :)